What the Workbook Actually Does and How to Use It Without Burning Out
I picked up the updated edition after going through three different discipleship curriculums that all promised transformation but delivered paperwork instead. The Christian Life Profile Assessment Workbook Updated Edition Developing Your Personal Plan To Think Act And Be Like Jesus is a self-assessment tool built around a set of behavioral and spiritual indicators mapped to what the authors consider Christlike character. It walks you through sections on prayer life, Scripture engagement, emotional regulation under stress, generosity habits, and conflict resolution patterns. Each section has a scoring grid, a reflection journal, and a planning worksheet at the end. That structure is useful, but the way people actually use it matters more than the book itself. Here is how I approach it. Open the workbook to the first assessment block and read every statement before you answer anything. The statements are written on a Likert scale from never to regularly. Do not skip ahead. I made that mistake early on and my totals came back skewed because I was answering based on where I wanted to be instead of where I actually am. Once you finish a section, close the book and sit with it for a day if you can. The answers you wrote in a rushed state tend to drift toward either perfectionism or self-condemnation depending on your default temperament. Coming back fresh usually shifts at least a few scores in the right direction. The planning worksheets at the end of each section are where most people stall. They ask you to write a personal action plan with measurable steps. The problem is that those plans often become too broad to execute. "Pray more" is not a plan. "Pray for twelve minutes every morning before checking my phone" is. I learned this the hard way when I spent six weeks following a plan that basically amounted to being more intentional, which got me nowhere. The workaround was to tie every action item to a specific existing habit. Link new spiritual disciplines to habits you already do without thinking. Brushing your teeth, making coffee, driving to work. Anchor the new behavior to something concrete.
One counter-intuitive thing about this assessment that most people miss: your lowest scores are not always the most important areas to fix first. The workbook presents the sections in a linear order, but treating them as a checklist creates a false sense of progress. In practice, I have found that working on your highest-scoring strengths often builds the stability needed to tackle harder areas. If you are solid in generosity but struggling with patience, building on the generosity habit gives you a track record of follow-through that carries into the patience work. Start with what is working, not what is broken. Another thing worth noting is the time commitment. A careful pass through the full assessment takes roughly ninety minutes. The reflection and planning phases add another forty-five to sixty minutes if you do them properly. That is not a weekend project. I have seen people try to power through it in one sitting and produce results that looked honest on paper but did not survive contact with real life. Spread it across two or three sessions. The numbers on the page are less valuable than the pattern you notice in how you answer. If you consistently rate yourself higher in public spiritual practices than in private ones, that gap tells you more than any individual score. There is a specific edge case that caught me off guard. The section on conflict resolution includes statements about how you handle disagreement within church contexts. I scored myself unusually high there because I assumed the questions referred to healthy church environments. They do not. I was answering from a place where the people around me avoided difficult conversations entirely, so I never had the opportunity to fail at conflict resolution. My high score was a blind spot, not an achievement. The workaround was to ask someone I trusted to rate me on the same statements independently. Their assessment was dramatically different and forced me to confront the fact that I had been equating silence with harmony. Do not rely solely on self-reporting for this section. Get an outside perspective.
The workbook also includes a final integration worksheet that asks you to synthesize everything into a single personal plan. This is the part that separates people who actually use the book from people who fill it out and shelve it. I recommend reading through your completed assessment first, then stepping away for at least two days before touching the integration worksheet. You will notice correlations you missed on the first pass. In my case, I saw a clear link between my stress management scores and my generosity patterns that I had completely overlooked. Under pressure I became financially rigid. That connection changed the entire shape of my action plan. Let me be straightforward about the limitations. The assessment assumes a certain baseline of Christian practice. If you are early in your faith or coming from a background where church culture was primarily punitive rather than formative, some of the framing will feel alien or guilt-inducing. The language around sin and repentance is embedded throughout and not everyone finds that helpful. There is no adjusted version for people in that position. You can still use the structural framework, but expect to reinterpret several sections through your own theological lens. The workbook is not designed for that, but it is not useless either. Another limitation is the assumption that you have the time and mental bandwidth to complete this properly. People working multiple jobs, caring for sick family members, or dealing with active crises will struggle to get honest results simply because they are running on empty. I completed a rough version during a particularly stressful season and my scores reflected exhaustion more than character. If you are in survival mode, come back to this when things stabilize. The assessment measures your current patterns, and survival is not a pattern you want to be locked into permanently.
Get the Full Details
If you decide to use it, here is a practical sequence that saves time and improves accuracy. First, print or open the workbook and complete all assessment sections in order without overthinking. Second, leave it closed for two days. Third, review your answers and mark any you want to reconsider. Fourth, complete the integration worksheet with the revised scores. Fifth, share your results with a trusted mentor or small group leader and ask them to challenge at least two of your self-assessments. Sixth, rewrite your action plan based on that feedback. This process takes about three weeks from start to finish but produces significantly better results than the standard one-sitting approach. The workbook is not a magic solution. It will not rewire your habits overnight or resolve deep relational wounds. What it does provide is a structured mirror, and mirrors are only useful if you actually look into them. I have found that the most valuable part of this process is not the scores but the moments of discomfort when you realize your self-perception does not match your actual behavior. That discomfort is where growth starts. The planning section gives you a map. Walking the path is entirely up to you. If you are looking for a copy, the updated edition is available through major Christian retailers and directly from the publisher. Search for the full title to make sure you get the latest version, since the earlier edition has some structural differences in the conflict resolution and emotional health sections that affect the planning worksheets. The core assessment framework is the same, but the updated edition includes more practical examples in the margins and a revised scoring key that reduces ambiguity around moderate responses.
Use it honestly. That is the only advice that actually matters.
